Kickstart Commands

Sets up the authentication options for the system. It's similar to the authconfig command that can be run after the install. By default, passwords are normally encrypted and are not shadowed.

Removes partitions from the system, prior to creation of new partitions. By default, no partitions are removed.

On most PCI systems, the installation program will autoprobe for Ethernet and SCSI cards properly. On older systems, and some PCI systems, kickstart needs a hint to find the proper devices, however. The device command tells Anaconda to install extra modules. It is of the form:

device <type> <moduleName> --opts <options>
	    

<type> should be one of "scsi" or "eth", and <moduleName> is the name of the kernel module which should be installed.

During kickstart, driver disks can be used by copying the contents of a driver disk to the root directory of a partition on the system's hard drive and using the driverdisk command to tell the installation program where to look for it.

driverdisk <partition> [--type <fstype>]
	    

<partition> is the partition containing the driver disk.

Tells the system to install a fresh system rather than upgrade an existing system. This is the default mode.

Install from the NFS server specified.

• --server <server>

  Server from which to install (hostname or IP).

• --dir <dir>

  Directory containing the Red Hat installation tree.

For example:

nfs --server <server> --dir <dir>
	    

Install from the first CD-ROM drive on the system.

For example:

cdrom
	    

Install from a Red Hat installation tree on a local drive, which must be either VFAT or ext2.

• --partition <partition>

  Partition to install from (such as, sdb2).

• --dir <dir>

  Directory containing the Red Hat installation tree.

For example:

harddrive --partition <partition> --dir <dir>
	    

Install from a Red Hat installation tree on a remote server via FTP or HTTP.

For example:

url --ulr http://<server>/<dir>
	    

Sets system keyboard type. Here's the list of available keyboards on i386 and Alpha machines:

azerty, be-latin1, be2-latin1, fr-latin0, fr-latin1, fr-pc, fr,
wangbe, ANSI-dvorak, dvorak-l, dvorak-r, dvorak, pc-dvorak-latin1,	      
tr_f-latin5, trf, bg, cf, cz-lat2-prog, cz-lat2, defkeymap,
defkeymap_V1.0, dk-latin1, dk. emacs, emacs2, es, fi-latin1, fi,
gr-pc, gr, hebrew, hu101, is-latin1, it-ibm, it, it2, jp106,
la-latin1, lt, lt.l4, nl, no-latin1, no, pc110, pl, pt-latin1,
pt-old, ro, ru-cp1251, ru-ms, ru-yawerty, ru, ru1, ru2, ru_win,
se-latin1, sk-prog-qwerty, sk-prog, sk-qwerty, tr_q-latin5, tralt,
trf, trq, ua, uk, us, croat, cz-us-qwertz, de-latin1-nodeadkeys,
de-latin1, de, fr_CH-latin1, fr_CH, hu, sg-latin1-lk450,
sg-latin1, sg, sk-prog-qwertz, sk-qwertz, slovene
	    

Here's the list for SPARC machines:

sun-pl-altgraph, sun-pl, sundvorak, sunkeymap, sunt4-es,
sunt4-no-latin1, sunt5-cz-us, sunt5-de-latin1, sunt5-es,
sunt5-fi-latin1, sunt5-fr-latin1, sunt5-ru, sunt5-uk, sunt5-us-cz
	    

Sets the default language for the installed system. The language you specify will be used during the installation as well as to configure any language-specific aspect of the installed system. For example, to set the language to English, the kickstart file should contain the following line:

lang en_US
	    

Valid languages codes are:

cs_CZ, en_US, fr_FR, de_DE, hu_HU, is_IS, id_ID, it_IT,
ja_JP.ujis, no_NO, pl_PL, ro_RO, sk_SK, sl_SI, es_ES,
ru_RU.KOI8-R, uk_UA
	    

Specifies how the boot loader should be installed on the system. By default, LILO installs on the MBR of the first disk, and installs a dual-boot system if a DOS partition is found (the DOS/Windows system will boot if the user types dos at the LILO: prompt).

If this is present, the installation program checks for LILO on the MBR of the first hard drive, and reboots the system if it is found -- No installation is done in this case. This can prevent the kickstart from reinstalling an already installed system.

Configures the mouse for the system, both in GUI and text modes. Options are:

Configures network information for the system. If it is not given, and the kickstart installation does not require networking (in other words, it's not installed over NFS), networking is not configured for the system. If the installation does require networking, Anaconda assumes that the install should be done over eth0 via a dynamic IP address (BOOTP/DHCP), and configures the final, installed system to dynamically determine its IP address. The network command configures the networking information for the installation for network kickstarts as well as for the final, installed system.

There are three different methods of network configuration:

• DHCP

• BOOTP

• static

The DHCP method uses a DHCP server system to obtain its networking configuration. As you might guess, the BOOTP method is similar, requiring a BOOTP server to supply the networking configuration.

The static method requires that you enter all the required networking information in the kickstart file. As the name implies, this information is static, and will be used during the installation, and after the installation as well.

To direct a system to use DHCP to obtain its networking configuration, use the following line:

network --bootproto dhcp
	    

To direct a machine to use BOOTP to obtain its networking configuration, use the following line in the kickstart file:

network --bootproto bootp
	    

The line for static networking is more complex, as you must include all network configuration information on one line. You'll need to specify:

• IP address

• netmask

• gateway IP address

• name server IP address

Here's an example static line:

network --bootproto static 
--ip 10.0.2.15
--netmask 255.255.255.0 
--gateway 10.0.2.254
--nameserver 10.0.2.1
	    

	Please Note
	The entire network configuration must appear on one line! We've wrapped it here to make it easier to read.

There are two restrictions you must keep in mind should you use the static method:

• All static networking configuration information must be specified on one line; you cannot wrap lines using a backslash, for example.

• You can only specify one name server here. However, you can use the kickstart file's %post section (described in the section called %post -- Post-Installation Configuration Section) to add more name servers, if needed.

Create a partition on the system. Partition requests are of the form:

	      
part <mntpoint> --size
<size> [--grow] [--onpart
<partc>] [--ondisk
<disk>] [--onprimary
<N>] [--asprimary <N>]
	    

The <mntpoint> is where the partition will be mounted, and must be of one of the following forms:

All partitions created will be formatted as part of the installation process unless --noformat and --onpart are used.

	Please Note
	If --clearpart is used in the ks.cfg file, then --onpart cannot be used on a logical partition.

	Please Note
	If partitioning fails for any reason, diagnostic messages will appear on VC 3.

Assembles a software RAID device. This command is of the form:

raid <mntpoint> --level <level> --device <mddevice><partitions*>
	    

The <mntpoint> is the location to mount the RAID filesystem. If it is /, the RAID level must be 1 unless a boot partition (/boot) is present in which the /boot partition has to be level 1 and the root (/) partition can be any of the available types. The <partitions*> (which denotes that multiple partitions can be listed) lists the RAID identifiers to add to the RAID array.

Here's an example of how to create a RAID level 1 partition for /, and a RAID level 5 for /usr, assuming there are three SCSI disks on the system. It also creates three swap partitions, one on each drive.

part raid.01 --size 60 --ondisk sda
part raid.02 --size 60 --ondisk sdb
part raid.03 --size 60 --ondisk sdc
	    

part swap --size 128 --ondisk sda part swap --size 128 --ondisk
sdb part swap --size 128 --ondisk sdc
	    

part raid.11 --size 1 --grow --ondisk sda part raid.12 --size 1
--grow --ondisk sdb part raid.13 --size 1 --grow --ondisk sdc
	    

raid / --level 1 --device md0 raid.01 raid.02 raid.03 raid /usr
--level 5 --device md1 raid.11 raid.12 raid.13
	    

Reboot after the installation is complete (no arguments). Normally, kickstart displays a message and waits for the user to press a key before rebooting.

usage: rootpw [--iscrypted] <password>

Set the system's root password to the <password> argument.

If present, X is not configured on the installed system.

timezone [--utc] <timezone>

Sets the system time zone to <timezone> which may be any of the time zones listed in "timeconfig".

Tells the system to upgrade an existing system rather than install a fresh system.

Configures the X Window System. If this option is not given, the user will need to configure X manually during the installation, if X was installed; this option should not be used if X is not installed on the final system.

If "zerombr" is specified, and "yes" is its sole argument, any invalid partition tables found on disks are initialized. This will destroy all of the contents of disks with invalid partition tables. This command should be used as:

zerombr yes

No other format is effective.

If a package name begins with an architecture type, you only need to type in the package name, not the architecture name. For example:

For i386: netscape-common you only need to use the netscape-common part for that specific package to be installed.

Lines that begin with a ?, are specific to the installation program. You do not have to do anything with these type of lines.

If a package name begins with --hide, you only need to type in the package name, minus the --hide. For example:

For --hide KDE Workstation you only need to use the KDE Workstation part for that specific package to be installed.

Allows you to specify commands that you would like to run outside of the chroot'ed environment.

Allows you to specify a different scripting language, such as perl.